As information technology continues to grow, there is an ever increasing need to more efficiently utilize the bandwidth of existing systems to facilitate the transfer of narrowband information that occurs in frequency bands wider than the link bandwidth.
In the field of antisubmarine warfare the more information about a target that can transmitted to a processor in real time, the faster target detection, identification and classification can occur. Acoustic sensor improvements have steadily generated additional target information as a result of increased sensor bandwidth and the ability of the sensor to measure target bearing. However, these improvements have not been completely utilized in existing systems since the sensed acoustic signal must be electronically digitized and transmitted over a narrower bandwidth RF datalink to an aircraft containing signal processing equipment. That is, the bandwidth of the sensor is typically greater than the bandwidth of the datalink which limits the amount of sensor data that can be transmitted to the signal processing equipment in real time.
If cost was not an issue, the solution to the problem is clearly retrofitting and replacing the existing communication system with a broader band system. However, less costly subsystem improvements can be made to the communications equipment which interface sonobuoys and aircraft thus allowing the sonobuoy to transmit additional information to the aircraft in real time.